This is a unique challenge blog where we are inspired by and focus on the Vintage; shabby; mixed-media; art journaling; industrial, timeworn and steampunk genres and encompass the talent, flair, expertise and ideas of many artists that we are inspired by. We welcome all types of projects - cards, journaling, assemblage, layouts, albums, atcs, altered art in fact whatever you want to share (as long as it is in good taste).

Monday, 27 April 2015

Hello A Vintage Journey friends! Julia
here today. It's my assignment this month to create for the 4th week of the Destination
Inspiration posts. Four of the Creative Guides are posting on Mondays every
month, using four ingredients chosen by the four participating Creative Guides.
The recipe we created for April is:

Product - Distress Paint

Substrate - Canvas

Technique - Grungepaper flowers (Vol 1 of Tim's CC Book, page 65)

Color - Picket Fence

I made a hanging cone using a Sizzix Cone Die to give to my sister for her 65th birthday (with a gift card inside!)

Now - before you say "hey - where's the canvas???!! (Yes - I heard you say that....) I layered canvas panels over my die cut cone shape. Below - you see the shape cut out of Mat Board - and below that - the same shape cut out of sticky back canvas. I cut the canvas part into four pieces along the score lines so I could decorate them separately and adhere them individually to each panel of the mat board cone.

First - I used Wendy Vecchi Black Embossing paste with Tim's Scribbles die on each of the canvas triangles.

Look how cool it came out and the paste gives it such a nice texture! Even though the panels were each stenciled separately - the pattern looks like it matches up in lots of places!!?? I sponged the edges a bit with Distress Tea Die and adhered each panel to the mat board cone. The canvas has a sticky back so it was so easy to layer it on. Then I splattered over it with Picket Fence Distress Paint, tapping a brush full of paint on my finger.

I made grunge paper flowers according to Tim's instructions on page 65 of his Compendium of Curiosities Vol 1. I first adhered more of the Sticky Back Canvas to a piece of Grunge paper and die cut it with Tattered Florals.

I sponged the flowers with Distress Antique Linen - then pounced on it with Picket Pence Distress Paint. The sponge top gives it a fun circular design - which sometimes you don't want - but I liked it on my flowers.

So then we fast forward to all the sides completed (well - I did add a couple more things which you may notice in the close up photos!) I painted the scallop top edges (part of the cone die) with Picket Fence Distress paint and sponged the edges with Tea Dye Distress Ink. I adhered them to the cone with ScorTape. I sprayed Crinkle Ribbon with Barn Door Distress Stain. I looped a piece through Ring Fasteners placed through holes on the top and adhered a folded piece along with Tinsel Twine inside the point at the bottom of the cone before closing it up.

I added my sister's name and the year using Label Letters. I added sentiments on each side using Small Talk stickers.

I dropped one drop of Watermelon Alcohol ink onto the Gum Drop to color it (I saw Tim do it on a Video from CHA - the ink spreads instantly - like magic - to color the whole Gum Drop with one little drop! so cool!). I dabbed the Mini Numerals with Picket Fence Distress Paint - and layered them over the same numbers from Alpha Parts - Framed, using foam dots.

The small flower centers are Shimmer Brads from Making Memories. I also splattered some Picket Fence paint on the flowers in addition to dabbing them previously. I made the little heart using Tim's new Movers and Shapers 3 mini Dies (heart, butterfly, star). I embossed it with Wendy Vecchi Red Geranium Ink and Embossing Powder.

I slipped two interesting buttons from my button box onto the Tinsel Twine hanging out of the bottom of my cone.

Also - a reminder! You still have a few more days (ends 4/30/15) to join in this month's
A Vintage Journey challenge, Through the Looking Glass, which I hosted. You will find the challenge and the link HERE.

Thanks so much for joining us today! We hope we have inspired you with our Destination Inspiration projects this month! They are really quite varied and lovely, don't you think?? Hugs - Julia xx

Friday, 24 April 2015

Here we are it's Friday again and time for another of our special invited guests and today it is Pamellia. She literally exploded onto the blogging scene last year and hasn't looked back. Her wonderful creations are being pinned right, left and centre and she has joined several design teams and is even starting her own challenge blog too. But let's give her centre stage here today and give her a warm welcome .........

Hello Everyone! My name is Pamellia Johnson and I live in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with my wonderful husband and our two little girls, Scully (a teacup Maltese) and Pebbles (a teacup black Pomeranian).

Thanks to my very creative and talented Mom, I have been crafting in some form or another since I was a little kid. I've dabbled in a variety of crafts, and my true passion has always been card making until recently when I discovered the world of Tim Holtz and mixed media! Now I just can't stop myself with those inks and sprays!

When the team from A Vintage Journey asked me to be a Guest Creative Guide, I was just so honoured. As soon as I heard Julia's wonderful theme "THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS", I just knew I had to do something involving the mirror from Snow White with lots of Tim Holtz influence. I hope you enjoy my gothic version of The Evil Queen's Vanity!!

My Evil Queen vanity started off as a pizza box, like many of my projects do. For the inside of the vanity, I painted the cardboard with a combination of Tim Holtz paints Fired Brick, Pumice Stone and Aged Mahogony. I used the Gothic stencil and some texture paste to apply the pattern and covered the paste with Ranger clear embossing powder while it was still wet.

After the paste dried, I heated up the embossing powder and used it as a resist so I could attack my panel with sprays and keep the texture paste white. I used Tim Holtz Fired Brick, Pumice Stone, Walnut Stain and Tarnished Brass until I got the look that I liked.

I used Tim Holtz's faux cracked glass technique on the little bottles (Idea-Ology) with a combo of alcohol inks Cranberry and Sunshine Yellow. The mirror frame was cut from Tim Holt'z Ornate frame die and I used the distress glitter technique with Tarnished Brass glitter and Black Soot distress ink to give it that aged metal look. These are just some of Tim's techniques I used to complete all of the details of my Evil Queen's Vanity.

Thank you so much to the entire team of A Vintage Journey for inviting me to spend the day with them. I am thrilled and honoured to be here with such a talented group of artists! For lots more photos, drop in for a visit - My Little Craft Things.

Now don't you just adore this gorgeous vanity box? The way everything has come together from the Snow White inspiration to that amazing cracked mirror has really intrigued me and I'm looking forward to popping over to Pamellia's blog to see more - I hope you are too - oh and while you're there check out her link for the new mixed media challenges.

Thank you Pamellia for sharing your talent, time and creative ideas with us today and creating such a tactile, textured and imaginary piece of art. We really appreciate you making something so special to go with our current challenge theme.

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Monday will see the last of the four Destination Inspiration posts for this month, so we look forward to seeing you back here again soon, but in the meantime have a wonderful weekend everyone and thank you for stopping by.

Monday, 20 April 2015

Well it is Trace (inkypinkycraft) here today to follow part 3 of the destination inspiration posts with Brenda and Anne before me, so using the same ingredients here is my stop on the destination inspiration journey :

Product - Distress Paint

Substrate - Canvas

Technique - Grungepaper flowers (Vol 1 of Tim's CC3C Book, page 65)

Colour - Picket Fence

I decided to use the inside of two canvas pieces to create a hinged piece, allowing me to decorate not only the front but the inside of the two canvas pieces too.

So here is the inside...

and here is how the two canvas were joined together ....

I will save the covers of this piece, or the outside of the canvas later on in the post..

To start I covered my canvas frames with tissue tape, to covered the join of where the canvas was stapled on ..

I extended the tape around the sides, careful not to overlap onto the front of the two pieces.

I then applied some picket fence distress paint to soften the detail of the tissue tape..

Continuing when the paint was dry with walnut stain distress ink and splatters of picket fence distress paint. I picked up the paint using a splatter brush from distress paint applied direct to my craft sheet and spritzed lightly with water.

Now for the fronts of the canvas... I started by applying some decoart media crackle paste through the latticework stencil..love this stencil so much!

I applied in areas on both of the canvas fronts.

I then applied some picket fence distress paint direct to my craft sheet and sprited, dabbing the canvas fronts into the paint..and allowing to dry .

When dried I sprized some pumice stone distress spray stain onto the top of the canvas , spritzed with water and allowed to drip , the heat dried .

When dry I added some walnut stain distress ink around the edges using a blending tool, it is amazing the difference these small touches make...and I think walnut stain distress ink makes anything and everything look better!

Now for the flowers, made using Tim's tutorial , Grungepaper flowers (Vol 1 of Tim's CC3C Book, page 65). I used various vintage papers and papers from Tim Holtz paper stash collections and edged the flowers in walnut stain distress ink.

To complete the flowers I added more splatters of picket fence distress stain and some of the idea-ology custom fastners.

To complete the covers..I added one of the pocket cards , cut into pieces and distressed and some sticky backed canvas leaves , die cut using spring greens die.

I love how the picket fence paint has resisted the distress stain spray in the background...and still think this is such a cool property of the distress paints that they react with water until dry and then are permanent.

Now ...for the inside...

I collected together elements from ephemera packs, pocket cards, idea-ology and distressed edges playing around until I was happy with the layout of the pieces. I added a photo booth photo to the centre of each collection. I tend to collect lots of pieces and then discard pieces that don't seem to fit..

here is the collection for the left hand side..

and here is the collection for the right hand side..

Now to finally add them to the inside of the canvas pieces ..

so to complete the left hand side some more grungepaper flowers and canvas leaves around the frame created by the inside edge of the canvas.

and the same for the right hand side ..

Finally to join the two pieces together I added an idea-ology hinge.

So hope you liked my make and make sure you stop back next week for another destination inspiration using the same recipe .

Friday, 17 April 2015

Good morning one and all, it's Friday and our Pinworthy day. Unfortunately two lovely pinworthy winners couldn't join us today but we do have the lovely Branka with a fabulous project to share. Branka reside HERE if you would like to pop over and see this and her other art.

I am very excited and honored to be a guest of the amazingly talented DT here at A Vintage Journey. I would like to thank to all of the AVJ DT members for such a fabulous opportunity!

Let me introduce myself.

I am a proud mom of two amazing children - a boy (17) and a girl (11) and I am a wife of a wonderful husband. We live in a small town in Croatia in our family home, we have a huge yard and a sweet little puppy that we all love. My main profession is an interpreter/translator.

In December 2013, I discovered scrapbooking/paper crafting by chance. It was love at first sight :) I am not consider myself as an artist but Tim's (Holtz) genius techniques are so fun and easy to follow that everyone can express himself in an artistic way using them. I started with my blog last year and my first challenge entry was in last October. My style is rather masculine and grunge but I try to express myself in other styles, as well. I am in love with mixed media art and art journaling and I like to mix Tim's and Dyan's (Reaveley) products and techniques when I do art journaling. It is so fun! I also create cards, mini albums and journals for my friends, relatives and people I love.

I created a mixed media steampunk canvas (reversed side). I rusted the edges with the help of iron paint and rust oxidant. To add some accent, I used one of the Tim's stencils (Measured) and the red-brown mineral paste.

I embossed the black cardstock using two different embossing folders (clock and gears).

Then I sprayed it with some Perfect pearl mists to achieve the metallic look.

I stamped the eye image with the black Archival ink on a manila tag (Tim Holtz Classics #12 stamp set), cut out and put the Tim's monocle on top. All the embellishments I used there were mostly by Tim Holtz and I used one of his stamps for the quote.

I hope you all like my project.

Thank you Branka it's a fabulous piece of art with so many gorgeous details. I love all the steampunk elements and effects you have achieved.

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We are half way into our current challenge theme 'Through the Looking Glass' hosted by our very talented Julia and have some amazing project entries already. I hope you are planning to hop aboard and share something with us, we hope to see you very soon.

Don't forget Monday will be the third in our new Destination Inspiration monthly series, each of the four Creative Guides takes a different route with the four chosen components and next Friday there will be a lovely special guest joining us with an inspirational project to share.

Monday, 13 April 2015

Hi, it's Brenda here with my DI piece for you today. The lovely Anne started us off last week with her interpretation of combining the four chosen components together for a project and of course I've used the same four -

Product - Distress Paint

Substrate - Canvas

Technique - Grungepaper flowers (Vol 1 of Tim's CC3C Book, page 65)

Colour - Picket Fence

I have chosen to reverse my canvas and work on the back of it as it is more like a shadowbox and I love the depth it creates.

My canvas is 25 x 30 cms and I cut a piece of prepared canvas material (to fit in the reverse side) on which to create my background. (I buy canvas pads to do this).

Sand over the surface of the canvas mat with a sanding block to distress the background area.

Take picket fence distress paint, apply it to your craft mat and again spritz with water, dip the canvas in to create some mottled patches and dry. Later you will see the lovely mottled effects that are created by starting with a base layer of the paints first.

Use light modelling paste and apply through a stencil to create a design. Leave to dry.

Spritz with distress spays – tea dye, evergreen bough & tattered rose. Heat dry. You can see the mottled white showing through as the picket fence paint has acted as a resist.

Place the stencil over the design again and dab picket fence distress paint over some of the texture paste pattern to bring it back to pure white again and leaving some with the colour absorbed. This gives another great mottled effect on the texture.

Take the canvas and paint the wood that is showing with white gesso and then cover the edges with Tim’s tissue wrap.

Layered Butterfly

Die-cut and emboss Tim’s layered butterfly. Take your colour of choice from a set of oil pastels and colour all the embossed (raised) parts. (I even got into blending colours using a cotton bud).

Dip it into a wash of dried marigold distress paint, blot and dry it and then spray with tea dye distress spray. When dry take the evergreen bough and spray a small amount onto your craft mat and spritze it quite heavily with water to get a more watery tone, then dip the wings into it and dry it.

Finish by inking the edges lightly with walnut stain and then spraying with a gloss sealer to give the colours more pop and shine.

Cut two smaller butterflies from Tim's butterfly duo die and give them the same treatment, strange how the darker one looks so different in style.

Grungepaper Flowers

I followed Tim’s instructions on P.65 of the CoC 1 to make the petals and then of course I followed my own route.

When you have made up the flowers dip the petals in spritzed picket fence distress paint and dry.

To get some colour on them I dipped them in both mustard seed and evergreen bough stains that had been spritzed with water and left them to dry. Next I dipped them in dried marigold distress paint – again spritzed with water on my craft mat.

Then sand the edges and blend in walnut stain distress ink.

Put the petal layers together with Tim brads or metal flowers with distress paints daubed over them.

18. Dab picket fence distress paint onto a word band and gently wipe the paint off with your fingers leaving the colour to remain in the recessed letters. Dab the edges with potting soil archival ink pad.

19. Now start to assemble the canvas – dab picket fence distress paint over the tissue wrapped frame, spritz it and wipe some away from the words and adhere the background into the recess.

20. Gather some elements together to create some interest and dimension on the background collage and adhere these to the back. I added some shapes from die-cuts of the trellis frameworks die and I took a metal number 3 painted it with gesso and when dry gave it a thick coat of picket fence distress crackle paint. I don't think I made the gesso coat thick enough as the crackle began to flake away but I added some evergreen bough distress paint and then some gathered twigs distress stain, spritzed it with water and dried it off, then gave it two coats of thick clear embossing powder. This has sealed it and will now prevent the crackle paint coming off any more. I rather like the distressed fell to the finish.

21. I took a small wooden bird and a chipboard frame from my box, painted them with white gesso and blended tea dye and walnut stain distress ink over them and I also stamped some text onto them.

The frame is going to help hold the flowers. (I wired it so the flowers can sit over it easily).

Some rafia .......

..... the die-cut shapes .....

.... add some remnant rubs .....

.... and some wired paper to the flower collection.

.... and the reverse canvas has come together.

Look how neat the flowers sit over the corner raised up on the frame I added.

Well done if you've managed to read this far .....

.... I hope you have enjoyed seeing my interpretation of the four chosen components coming together.